Nuclear weapons have place in US arsenal

July 18, 2012

Learning to fight new kinds of wars is imperative, as Americans have learned during the past several years. But that does not mean abandoning weapons that are provably effective in deterring some enemies.

President Barack Obama and his aides, no doubt including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are preparing for a new round of nuclear weapons reduction talks with Russia.

The "New Start" treaty already agreed upon would require both countries to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in our arsenals, to 1,550 each. Moscow already has met the requirement, with a cut to 1,492 nuclear weapons. The United States, with 1,737 warheads, has some work to do.

Obama isn't satisfied, however. Reportedly, the White House may be considering a proposal that would eliminate even more weapons, taking the U.S. nuclear arsenal down to as few as 1,000 warheads.

That is only part of the president's long-term goal, however. He hopes that one day, the United States will scrap all its nuclear weapons.

No treaty even leading up to such action should be approved by the Senate.

Nuclear war is a terrible prospect. No one in his right mind wants it. But giving up our nuclear weapons even as rogue nations and terrorist groups are trying to build their own would be suicidal.